Several moderate House Democrats said they were concerned and frustrated by Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s account, which emerged over the weekend, of being questioned by Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign, as part of his vetting as her potential running mate, about whether he had ever been an agent of Israel.

Some progressives have defended the questioning by pointing to a subsequent report that the campaign had asked Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the eventual vice presidential nominee, about whether he had served as an agent for China, where he once lived. 

But Shapiro, who volunteered on a kibbutz and briefly on an Israeli army base while in high school, also said that the campaign had pressured him to walk back condemnations of antisemitism on college campuses, and emphasized that he took offense to the scope and persistence of the questioning he faced about Israel.

“Totally insane,” Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) told Jewish Insider. “I don’t know how else to describe insanity. Literally insane.”

Rep. Greg Landsman (D-OH) said the questioning was “concerning” and that he was “glad Josh had the courage to say what happened.”

“Hopefully people will appreciate that you shouldn’t do that. … It’s a longstanding antisemitic trope that we’re all agents of the Israeli government, that we’re all working for this global Jewish cabal. And so that’s problematic,” Landsman, who is Jewish, continued. “Antisemitism is complicated. There’s a lot of pieces to it. They all get very dangerous for us. I do think that people should be open to say, if Jews say it’s antisemitic — even if some say it’s not — let’s just assume it is and be done and not do it.”

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) called the revelations “incredibly disturbing,” while saying she didn’t believe Harris would have approved the line of questioning.

“The process that allowed for those kinds of questions to be asked is disturbing to me. I’ve known Josh Shapiro for a really long time, and I understand how he felt and would have felt the same way,” Wasserman Schultz, a former chair of the Democratic National committee, told JI. “It’s a little bewildering that that would be the kind of question line that they would take, given that Vice President Harris’ husband is Jewish. From what I know and experienced of both she and he, separately and together, that doesn’t seem like a line of questioning that she would have approved of. Hopefully it was a rogue question, rather than something that was sanctioned.”

Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL) praised Shapiro personally and said he took issue with the questions he faced in the vetting process.

“I’ll give you my reaction to Josh Shapiro: This is someone who knows who he is, he’s confident in his identity and proud of where he comes from and strong in what he believes. I think he gave the right answers, and I think it was wrong that those questions were even raised.”

Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) said that the questioning of Shapiro was not appropriate, calling it “very disturbing” and “unfair.”

Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) said in a statement over the weekend that Shapiro’s account was “nothing short of outrageous, and, if true, demand[s] an immediate explanation from the Harris campaign.

“That kind of insinuation and  targeting is antisemitism, plain and simple. No one should be judged or discriminated against because of their faith. We must do better,” Gottheimer continued.

Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-VA) said on CNN over the weekend, “If that question was asked of Governor Shapiro, it should have been asked to every other candidate who was vetted.”

Others largely withheld criticism of the Harris campaign.

Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), a co-chair of the Congressional Jewish Caucus, said that it sounded like other potential nominees had also been asked about foreign ties, but described the line of questioning as “bizarre.”

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) withheld judgment when asked about Shapiro’s revelations, telling JI, “It’s obviously very interesting. I don’t know whether the person asking the vetting questions really reflected Kamala Harris’ personal opinions at all, so I’ve got to read more about it.”

Rep. Madeliene Dean (D-PA) said she didn’t want to comment on the situation without having read Shapiro’s book coming out next week, in which he describes the encounter, or having been present for the conversations in question, but said that she has known Shapiro for a long time and praised him as a man of “[faith], family and a belief in the American system.”